With Three White Dogs and a Pig (see what I did there lol 😉 I’m easy pleased).

Training is very important. To have a happy, contented, well rounded dogs, the dogs need to know and learn what is expected from them. Now, Yes, the dogs are my fur babies but they are dogs and they need to be allowed to be dogs.

What are we working on you are asking? Well the main commands are , leave it (see photo) this way and wait. We do have others but with children, cats and visitors these are the ones we use most.

In addition to this we are working on getting ready for walks. Why you are wondering? Well Rosie at 12 years young has a few excitable habits but more importantly she is a poorly dog. Sadly after her dental work it was found that not only did she have cushings disease but an enlarged heart and the beginning of westie lung.

Now while we have committed to paying for Rosies medication. We also committed to helping her as best we can. One way we can do this is to try and keep her as calm as possible. Too much excitement restricts her breathing and puts her heart under tremendous pressure.

So we are back to basics, we do not go for walks or prepare for walks until everyone is calm. Now the first few days we did this it took nearly 30 minutes before we could eventually get out to start our walk. That timing has got less and less, as the days go on (and alot calmer).

We also deliberately bring the leads and harnesses into the house and randomly leave them around (Rosie always wears harnesses when walking to take pressure away from her airways). This is so the dogs can see the walking instruments as normal things rather than excitable things.

These are just some ways of putting in boundaries and behaviours we feel are best for us and the dogs.

So training has begun, we are still in the middle off it. Things are getting there and improving, we just have to keep at it. Happy home, happy dogs, happy dogs, happy home 😛.